Welcome to the United States of Anxiety

 Book 2 of my 2021 Reading Challenge

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety: Observations from a Reforming Neurotic

by Jen Lancaster

Summary

published 2020

The author uses Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to explore anxiety and how it has changed throughout the years, both with her individual experiences and stories and overall in the United States with research.

First Impressions/Judging a Book by Its Cover

I picked this book from the Amazon "First Reads" options because I've read a few of her books before.  She's an author that peaks my curiosity if I see a book of hers but not one that I love so much that I'll seek out everything she's written.

Since it's an electronic copy I don't have much to draw from regarding the layout of the book.  The cover of the book looks bright and fun and it definitely would've caught my eye if I'd seen it as a physical book on the shelves.

My Opinion

4 stars

I received this book for free through the Amazon First Reads program.  I don't know if that needs a disclaimer so I'm including it just to make sure. 

There is a last-minute author's note added, written in March 2020 as the pandemic was just beginning.  Unfortunately, her hope that "when the book comes out in October, we're a nation of happy and healthy hand-washers" isn't the case but I would be interested in how the pandemic would've affected this book if she'd still been in the writing process and saw how everything unfolded.  For myself personally (as a very anxious person, especially regarding safety/morbidity), I'm pleasantly surprised because I've coped a lot better than I expected to.  It's almost like so much of my anxiety was shaped by "what-ifs", when an actual situation came up I was able to hunker down and deal with it, like having a tangible "allowable" anxiety (because who hasn't been anxious this year?) calmed me down.

But enough about me.  Let's talk about the book...

I've had mixed success with this author in the past.  I've always liked her writing but it could also become too much too quickly if I didn't enjoy the topic.  This was relatable to me so I liked it a lot. It helped that some of our memories/slang overlap and I still recognized most of the references even if I was too young to experience them firsthand. 

The chapters were broken up really well, almost like a series of essays that are themed enough to be in the same book but don't necessarily have a through line from start to finish.  I can tell she started as a blogger and I know I would've enjoyed her blog if I'd found it at that time.

"It's no mistake that Maslow's Hierarchy is set up as a triangle, with each level of anxiety sitting atop the last, like a mounting pile of concern."  This line from the book really resonated with me because people can be hungry and still stress about the future even though their main concern is the present.

Even the endnotes to cite her research were amusing.  As an example, the line in the book was, "[my father] may have had a point, considering an hour-long prime-time call ran fifteen dollars in 1970s money."  The endnote for that line was, "The fact-checker would like me to provide a source for these numbers. My reference is my father opening the phone bill and losing his shit while touting these numbers one Saturday a month for my entire childhood. It's possible he was using hyperbole, much like the time he claimed to have swilled margaritas with Jack Kerouac until dawn and then raced his Jaguar the length of the Mass Turnpike."

Quote from the Book 

"...we're going to have a problem. By "problem," I mean, "I shall quietly roll my eyes at you inside my own head," as I am a GD adult who's too polite to hurt your feelings over that which has zero impact on my life."